Oceans becoming noisier thanks to pollution -- report

Dec 20, 2009

A dolphin swims off the coast of Rangiroa, or "Rangi", the most populated of the Tuamotu islands in French Polynesia. The world's oceans are becoming noisier thanks to pollution, with potentially harmful effects for whales, dolphins and other marine life, US scientists said in a study published Sunday.

The world's oceans are becoming noisier thanks to pollution, with potentially harmful effects for whales, dolphins and other marine life, US scientists said in a study published Sunday.

Low-frequency sound in the ocean is produced by natural phenomena such as rain, waves and marine life, and by human activities such as sonar systems, shipping and construction.

The sound is absorbed mainly through the viscosity of the water and the presence of certain dissolved chemicals, said the report published in the science journal Nature.

But the concentration of chemicals that absorb sound in the oceans has declined as a result of ocean acidification, in turn caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide come from human activity such as shipping, with the number of ships roughly doubling over the past 40 years, the scientists said.

This was in turn increasing the acidity of the ocean, shown by a lowering of its pH levels, they said.

Using model simulations, the scientists found that increases in acidity could reduce seawater sound absorption by as much as 60 percent by 2100 in high latitude oceans.

Concern about the negative effect of the sea's increased acidity had previously been concentrated on the reduced rate of calcification, such as in coral reefs.

"However, a less anticipated consequence of ocean acidification is its effect on underwater sound absorption," the authors said.

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User comments : 5

Oceans becoming nosier eh? As in "on the nose" / stinkier? Or a plethora of unnecessary noses are finding finding their way into the ocean from unregulated nose landfills? Perhaps the oceans are becoming unduly curious and inquisitive? Nobody knows.

So there is NO empirical data. It is all by conjecture.The ocean is alkaline. Ice-core investigations have shown the atmosphere to have had much more CO2 than today. There stil are dolphins around. Hence we see a postulated effect without causality.

I have a model too.

This is the scientist income model:If {Keywords in funding request contains "Global Warming'| 'CO2'|"caused by man'THEN {"Wahoo, you get free money'}ELSE {'Sorry bro, you gotta work for your dough'}}

This model predicts that we as a tax payer will be paying more and more hard earned money to freeloaders like these.

I really object to using the term scientist by every hobo that jumps on the climate scam train.

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